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I haven’t heard anything further from Thomson Reuters regarding their cause-branding co-option of International Women’s Day, however as you may recall (see earlier posts on the matter here), according to Julia Fuller, the Global Head of Corporate Responsibility at Thomson Reuters,

Thomson Reuters involvement with the IWD site extends to the provision of news feeds which contain gender relevant content around a number of themes including science and innovation, justice, health and business and finance. Hence our partnership is more refined than simply posting irrelevant Reuters news stories onto the site.

Stocks edge lower, new home sales fall, Geithner takes the hot seat and Berkshire shares surge…this is gender relevant how? Please feel free to write to Ms. Fuller and ask her directly,julia.fuller@thomsonreuters.com. You might also inquire about the change in identity on Twitter–they’ve changed the InternationalWomensDay.com user name from Reuters_Women to Women_on_IWD, but their bio description still reads,

Thomson Reuters is global partner to the Aurora International Women’s Day website. Tweet back.

In other words, it is still a Thomson Reuters gig, but it isn’t as obvious unless you click on their profile. While we are delighted that that Thomson Reuters is supportive of International Women’s Day, saying that their website, which is clearly designed in part to drive traffic to unrelated Reuters content, is The International Women’s Day website in their metatags is presumptuous, erroneous and unacceptable and the Feminist Peace Network continues to call for a boycott of the InternationalWomensDay.com website.

We have a bit of a victory in the protest of Thomson Reuters and Aurora’s reference to InternationalWomensDay.com as the official IWD site. The word ‘official’ is no longer in their metatags. However the response I received this morning from Julia Fuller who is their Global Head of Corporate Responsibility still leaves quite a lot to be desired. Her letter and my response follow below.

I have no idea how many of you answered my original call to write to Aurora and Thomson Fuller regarding this usurpation of IWD for commercial gain, but apparently enough so that they are listening. Please please keep those letters up (Please write to InternationalWomensDay.com here and to Reuters here)–they are listening! In the meantime, we continue to call for a boycott of the site.

Dear Ms Marshall

Thank you for your emails. We have now looked into this matter.

The IWD website refers to Thomson Reuters as Global Partner and the website states: “The International Women’s Day website provides a free service to women around the world wanting to share and promote their IWD activity, videos, opinions and ideas. Please feel free to submit gender-related items for the site that you consider relevant and useful.”The word “official” is not used at any point on the website although it did appear in a piece of background html code. This word has now been removed from that background code.

It is clear that the IWD site does not purport to be “official”, but merely to act as a forum for individuals and organisations around the world to share and promote IWD activity, opinions and ideas. Thomson Reuters is wholly committed to equality in the workplace, transparency and accuracy and is proud to be working with Aurora and other individuals and organisations around the world to develop talent, encourage workplace diversity and to actively support organisations that share our commitment to these values. Thomson Reuters involvement with the IWD site extends to the provision of news feeds which contain gender relevant content around a number of themes including science and innovation, justice, health and business and finance. Hence our partnership is more refined than simply posting irrelevant Reuters news stories onto the site.

Please note, that Glenda Stone is not an employee or contractor at Reuters, but guest blogs on reuters.com, where it clearly states that her opinions are her own and not those of the company

InternationalWomensDay.com is not The site, there simply is no such thing and it is an affront to usurp that title from the thousands of women that work on IWD awareness throughout the world. The word ‘the’ should also be removed from your tags.

As to your assertion that, ” Thomson Reuters involvement with the IWD site extends to the provision of news feeds which contain gender relevant content around a number of themes including science and innovation, justice, health and business and finance. Hence our partnership is more refined than simply posting irrelevant Reuters news stories onto the site.”– I would disagree. Fully half of the tabs at the top of the page are to Reuters content. Here are some of the stories linked to on your business page. I have no idea what these have to do with International Women’s Day or why these are considered gender-relevant:

The other pages of links are equally irrelevant to IWD. On your page about jobs, there is no source information, just data that is irrelevant if people don’t know where it came from. There are a number of excellent sources for news stories that are relevant to IWD and women’s human rights. The Feminist Peace Network blog references this sort of story on a regular basis and I would be happy to help you build a database of relevant news sources.

Finally, I am wondering if you consulted with any of the major women’s organizations that work with global women’s human rights organizations before you organized this page. While developing talent and workplace diversity are important, they are only a part of what IWD is about and for a website like this to truly work there should certainly be some sort of advisory board that reflects non-commercial interests within the global women’s advocacy community. I see no evidence of that here.

I hope that you will give this matter the further consideration it deserves.

There you have it–please keep writing to them. IWD is our day and this sort of cause-branding is reprehensible and unacceptable and it needs to stop. If you do write, please send a copy to fpn@feministpeacenetwork.org.

January 25, 2010Posted by Fempeace on January 25, 2010Comments Off on Thomson Reuters Still Doesn’t Get It–The InternationalWomensDay.com Boycott Continues

This is the response I received from Reuters regarding FPN’s objection to their callous cause-branding of International Women’s Day via the InternationalWomensDay.com website. (see earlier posts here and here), as well as my response.

Dear Ms Marshall,

Many thanks for your email below. We are looking in to the points you make and the issue as a whole and will revert to you as soon as we have investigated fully.

Kind regards

Melissa Berry
Director of Global Sponsorships and Client Events

Thomson Reuters

Dear Ms. Berry,

Thank you for following up on this matter. I want to also call your attention to our expanded call for a boycott of InternationalWomensDay.com based on further investigation of the site.

Using International Women’s Day as a cause-branding opportunity is not acceptable. That the website includes significant portions that have absolutely nothing to do with IWD and merely point readers to your product is opportunism at its worst. International Women’s Day celebrates women’s human rights, not a marketing opportunity and we call for Thomson Reuters and Aurora to cease their callous disregard for this immediately.

Sincerely,

Lucinda Marshall, Director
Feminist Peace Network

Stay tuned…

January 22, 2010Posted by Fempeace on January 22, 2010Comments Off on Thomson Reuters Follows Up And FPN Responds

As any long term reader of the Feminist Peace Network blog knows, I have no patience with cause-branding for profit at the expense of women’s lives and rights. Here a few of this year’s not so delightful IWD offenders:

This ad for a new LG Ice Cream phone gets our nod for misogynist bad taste this year:

It is international Women’s day (sic) coming up soon on March 8th, for those of you that didn’t know already.

LG have their LG KF350 otherwise known as the Ice Cream which is just in time for those of you that want to treat that special lady in your life. Whether that be your mum or your girlfriend, or whoever that special lady is.

This is a delightful phone which is available in lovely candy floss colours of either vanilla or pink. It is all girly and is a great lady phone for sure. Although this was launched in Korea back in 2008 the device is only just making its way over here.

However this year we bestow our lowest honor, the what part of sex trafficking do you not understand is wrong award, to 1888pressrelease.com for a press release for Hot Russian Brides that reads,

In an effort to help members develop their relationships further, leading International Dating service (aka “russian bride”) HotRussianBrides.com® is offering an additional 50% off the already discounted Video Streaming rate to Premium Members with active Intimacy Requests to celebrate International Women’s Day. The promotion takes places on March 8, from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Eastern Time.

International Women’s Day, observed on March 8, is a global celebration of women. Since HotRussianBrides.com empowers Russian and Ukrainian women to find love anywhere in the World, the day is widely used as an occasion for men to express their love for the special women in their lives.

The release goes on to explain that this is a dating service not a mail order bride service. Uh huh. Oh and as for 1888pressrelease.com, you’ll be pleased to know that,

Because we aim to carry only quality releases, editors and journalists have come to rely on 1888PressRelease.com as a credible source of information. In fact, our troupe of editors manually reviews and approves each press release to ensure it has significant content, meets formatting and grammatical standards, and is newsworthy.

No, really, drippy pink phones and exploitive dating services aren’t newsworthy or significant, even if they meet grammatical standards (although our sensitive lady-eyes appreciate that gesture towards English grammar while hawking Russian brides), and do not celebrate the lives of women. In fact, they just look like crass, misogynist anything to make a buck business as usual to us. In other words, go shove your crappy merchandising and keep your grubby little advertising campaigns off our holiday.

Finally, the Feminist Peace Network continues to call for a boycott (or more to the point woman-cott) of InternationalWomen’sDay.com which, while offering information on IWD is primarily devoted to pointing traffic towards Reuters news stories (Thomson Reuters, parent company of Reuters is one of the primary sponsors for the site). Here are some of the IWD-irrelevant headlines they were hawking on March 2:

–Getting naked for art at the Sydney Opera House
–Pharma desire for “female Viagra” excites passion
–Children over-exposed to sexual imagery
–Women and men travellers tend to get different illnesses
–Britain sorry for shipping children to colonies
–Your old mascara may be spoiling your looks
–Exhibit lifts the skirts on feminine footwear

International Women’s Day is a human rights celebration not an advertising opportunity. While the website does in part provide a service, more than half of it is devoted to driving traffic to Reuters and that is not acceptable. You can read more about the boycott call here.

Beginning today, the Feminist Peace Network will post announcements for International Women’s Day events throughout the world as we have done every year since our inception, this year in the form of a weekly roundup of listings. Here are a few early announcements:

If you have an event that you would like listed, please send the information to fpn @ feministpeacenetwork.org. Include IWD in the subject line. Also. please click here to read more about our boycott of the Thomson Reuters InternationalWomensDay.com website.

February 1, 2010Posted by Fempeace on February 1, 2010Comments Off on International Women’s Day Events Calendar 2/1/10